Abort
by Red the Ordinary
Summary: Probe1 is sent to the AXIOM Bridge for repair by AUTO when she begins to exhibit unnatural behavioral patterns the Repair Ward can't fix. AUTO takes matters into his own hands - at EVE's expense. One-shot; takes place several years before the film.


DATE STAMP: 07-05-2779

02:11:37:067 AM - AXIOM Standard Time

Annual Reconnaissance Report

Recon #00774; Scout Group 1, Probes 1-5

PROBE1 - MALFUNCTION, SERVICE IMMEDIATELY

PROBE2 - Negative

PROBE3 - Negative

PROBE4 - Negative

PROBE5 - Negative

AUTO quickly skimmed through the yearly reconnaissance report and would have dismissed it just as he always did if it weren't for the alert that came up, notifying him that one of the EVE probes had malfunctioned and needed repair. He pressed several buttons on the touchscreen control panel, and the report page disappeared. He pressed another combination of buttons, and GO-4 entered the room, giving a salute as he appeared. He ordered the small robot to bring the problematic probe straight to the Repair Ward to be serviced, and GO-4 obeyed without hesitation.

EVE Probe1 had been in hibernation mode since leaving Earth, and for the first few moments after being turned on in the Repair Ward she was extremely disoriented. The first thing she saw was a large robotic hand charging towards her head with a small red device that attached to her head and chest. She pulled away and began to screech at the robots who were handling her.

"Leave me alone!" she was screaming at them in her own computerized robotic language. "What do you think you're doing to me? I'm perfectly _fine!_"

She pushed them away and activated her plasma gun, aiming at one of the robots. GO-4 was still on the MV-R vehicle with her, and when he saw her acting up he commanded the robots to shut her down. One reached for the yellow button on the device attached to EVE, but she whipped around and let out another sharp beep, her gun still drawn.

"I said _leave me alone!_" she cried. As soon as she spoke, she felt the robot behind her give her a good tap from behind, and she let out a yelp at the disturbing gesture. She was sure she heard GO-4 laugh at the action. She was still in shock of the move, and in the short few seconds she was still, the other robot was able to reach in and shut her down.

GO-4 returned to the Bridge and told AUTO that she was being serviced, and that was all AUTO needed to know. He immediately returned to his duties, making sure that everything was in tip-top shape before the captain awoke at 9:00.

The digital clock in AUTO's programming, which was tied to the ship's main computer, clicked from 5:29 to 5:30, and almost as soon as it did, a new message popped up on a screen on the other side of the room. He glided over to the small screen, pressed a button, and read through the message.

Repair Ward Diagnostic Report

EVE PROBE1

Internal programming error; was unable to be repaired.

Probe exhibits unnatural behavior; fighting, screaming, breakdowns.

Needs various programming patches, microprocessor upgrade, reformatted hard drive filing system.

Actions performed: Standard probe diagnostic, hard drive file system check, microprocessor stability test, vegetation sustainability check, standard debugging.

Passed 3/5 tests.

Unfortunately, AUTO knew what this meant - he had to service the probe himself. He never had to do this before, and although he was capable of writing programs and building computer patches, he was unsure of how he was to assess the problem with the EVE probe. If it was an issue with behavior, then something was definitely wrong. Something in her programming must have corrupted somehow, for a probe like her was simply built to scan for plant life and not exert emotion and free-willed behavior.

He'd get down to the bottom of it. He was too sharp of a robot to let a problem like this go unresolved.

* * *

GO-4 returned to the Bridge with EVE not even ten mintues after AUTO received the last message. He shoved her inside, saluted AUTO, and disappeared again, leaving the probe alone with the wheel. EVE let out a sigh as AUTO rummaged through a storage compartment for some wires. Before he could open a panel on her that revealed her microprocessor and various wired connections, she pulled back and frowned at him, giving a low whirr that seemed to say, "back off." AUTO again advanced towards her and managed to pry open the panel against her will.

EVE continued to protest as AUTO attached the wires to her and connected the other ends to the computer. He ignored her for the first five minutes as an advanced diagnostic program began to run, which would attempt to determine the cause of EVE's unusual behavior. After a while she fell silent and simply watched as her programming failed test after test in the diagnostic, and her eyes followed AUTO as he hovered to another section of the control panel and brought up a raw computer script. At first she simply watched him as he typed in what looked like garbled letters and characters, but looking again she understood what he was doing.

_Computer program_, she thought. _Is he rewriting my programming?_

"AUTO," she softly called. The robot whirled around, a bit startled by the unusual sound of her crystalline voice speaking his name. She pointed to the screen he was working on. "Reprogramming?"

AUTO shook his head. "Writing a programming patch," he replied in that monotonous voice of his. "Your behavior violates protocol. It will be terminated immediately."

EVE narrowed her eyes and pulled back slightly in confusion. Behavior? What was that?

The diagnostic finished running, and AUTO came back over to look over the results. EVE impatiently looked around the room as AUTO messed with the computer, realizing for the first time that she had really never been up here before. She ran an internal analysis on her location, and the words "AXIOM Bridge" appeared on her screen. She looked towards the windows and was fascinated by the billions of twinkling stars out in space, and when she blinked she noticed her reflection in the mirror of the window. Those bright blue LED lights, shaped like perfect female eyes, blinked back. She had never really paid any attention to what she looked like, as there had never really been a reason for her to see herself, but when she looked over that sleek, egg-shaped probe made of the smoothest glass material, she couldn't help but be in awe.

She let out a giggle and continued to observe her surroundings as AUTO engrossed himself in computer duties. The room was large and circular, with shiny floors that reflected the soft recessed lighting in the ceiling. In the floor were wide holes, also lit by dim LED lighting, that allowed AUTO access downstairs to the Captain's Quarters where the captain now slept. There were several control panels, all lit up with brightly-colored touch-activated buttons, all along the walls of the room. She lifted her head up and could see tracks in the ceiling, which AUTO used for transport around and across the room.

Her eyes finally fell on AUTO again, who had finished the patch and was ready to install it using a microchip and some thin, translucent wires. EVE decided not to fight back this time and let AUTO type in a code on her keypad that opened her chest cavity, which was normally reserved for containing vegetation should she find a sample of it on Earth. He opened a few more panels inside the compartment, pulled out some wires from there, and connected them with the translucent wires. Eventually, he had the microchip hard-wired to EVE, and he attached the microchip to the back of the compartment. He left it open as he resumed completing the other tasks that needed to be performed in order to fix EVE.

EVE shook her head and pointed to her open compartment, looking up at AUTO with her eyes squinted in confusion. "Would you explain this to me?" she asked him, using that language only they could understand. AUTO opened a new program and turned to EVE after hearing her question.

"The microchip has a patch in it that will control your behavior," he simply replied.

EVE cocked her head. "So you're... trying to control me?"

AUTO was silent and unsure of how to respond. His speech faltered a bit before he actually spoke. "No. That is not the case."

EVE went quiet again, watching intently as AUTO set up a new program that would reformat her hard drive's filing system.

"Will that wipe out my memory?" she wondered.

"No," AUTO again replied.

"But it says 'reformat'."

"It will not erase your memory."

She sighed in reluctance and dully stared at the steering wheel while he continued to work. He turned to face her, and when he saw the unimpressed expression on her face, something in his programming snapped.

He almost felt like laughing at the way she was looking at him.

But... why?

He shrugged it off immediately. "You must be in power reserve mode in order for the program to run."

EVE was still frowning. "Who says I'll listen to you?"

AUTO went tense at the words. "There will be no arguments. You _will_ obey me." EVE slowly hung her head, and her eyes drooped.

"Yes, sir," she answered in submission, and moments later she voluntarily entered power reserve mode. AUTO ran the program, which took over an hour to complete, and allowed EVE to awaken once the procedure was finished. She was silent the entire time he upgraded her processor, and when he was sure he had addressed all the problems the Repair Ward report had listed, he activated the microchip and closed EVE's chest cavity.

"You will be kept on the Bridge for the next five days," AUTO told her. "Must make sure programming patch works correctly."

EVE was thankful to finally be out of AUTO's hair, and she entered sleep mode in a shadowy corner of the Bridge. AUTO returned to his post and went into sleep as well, still subconsciously steering the ship in the background.

Apparently, he had never noticed that as soon as the microchip was activated and EVE's compartment had closed, the small plant logo on her chest began to light up.

* * *

Day two of five had passed, and EVE woke up that morning to an unsual, continuous beeping. It sounded as if it were coming from her. She had been in sleep mode for the past few days, unconscious of AUTO checking on the microchip on a daily basis, and hadn't been turned on at all the entire time. She couldn't recall ever hearing this beeping before, and as soon as she awoke she alerted AUTO.

He jolted out of sleep mode and was at her side as soon as she called. She noticed now that she was awake that her vision was flickering in and out, and it was taking her longer than it normally did to retrieve data from her short-term memory cache. She could barely even move.

"AUTO...?" she timidly managed, her voice coming out slowly and painfully. She tilted her head. "Problem?"

"Low battery," AUTO answered her. EVE let out a confused hum. She had never had problems with her battery before, in fact, usually it would keep for an entire month during a reconnaissance mission. She only had to charge it once a year, and she had just been charged a few days ago. How could it have drained so fast - especially with her being in sleep mode all this time?

AUTO went through the tedious process of hooking her up to the computer all over again, and she felt so weak that she couldn't even fight back. She found her head drooping and her vision going black for moments at a time, and when AUTO noticed this he waved a knob in front of her screen.

Something was going awry in his programming again. How come he felt concerned for her?

"EVE?" he found himself saying. Normally he called her by her formal name of "Probe1". Her eyes snapped open, and she looked up at him with her eyes round and filled with fright. AUTO hurriedly turned to the computer and began transmitting a charge to EVE's depleating battery. "Stay... awake, EVE."

He quickly opened her compartment again and took a look at the microchip, noticing for the first time that some kind of indicator light was flashing on it. Electricity channeled through some of the wires that held it in place, which were all connected to EVE in one way or another. It wasn't just little bursts of electricity either, it was surges of power. Obviously, it was pulling its source of energy from EVE's battery supply, which would explain why her battery had gone down so fast.

If the microchip was drawing so much power, AUTO deduced that adding more parts to it would help even out the amount of energy it took in. He put EVE back to sleep and worked for another hour on elaborating that small chip until it became what looked like a miniature motherboard. He attached more wires to regulate the energy flow, attached the motherboard to EVE, and closed her up all over again.

_Keep her in sleep mode so she'll properly recharge,_ he told himself, and he gently moved her back to the spot where she had been previously napping. He was about to go back to sleep as well, but he found himself still hovering next to the unconscious probe, staring at her in what felt like awe. But that was the problem - for the first time in his existence, he realized that he was _feeling_. Feeling breached programming. He couldn't feel. He _shouldn't_ feel. That was wrong.

She was spotless and seamless; streamlined and sleek. Her design was black and white, with no grey at all. Her eyes were like newborn stars, so bright and full of energy. She spoke in crystalline, celestial tones; each word she delivered always rang clear and clean. And next to the AUTO Pilot, she had the most important job in the entire line of BnL robots. Didn't that make her AUTO's equal; his colleague?

No. No, he couldn't be thinking like this. He quickly turned from her, resolving to rid his mind of any thought of her. Instead of her coming back to his mind, however, thoughts about the microchip-turned-motherboard began to trickle in. He slowly turned back around and faced her, wondering if he should at least take one more look at that microchip. She was in sleep mode and wouldn't awaken while he inspected her, so he decided to give it a look over just once more.

The compartment was opened once again. AUTO reached in and carefully attached another wire connected to the computer to the microchip, opened up a computer program, and began running simple tests on it. He noticed as the tests ran that traces of program dialogue was turning up in the results. He immediately distinguished it as different from EVE's programming scripts. That didn't make sense - this microchip didn't have the capacity to write its own program. Yet it was happening before AUTO in real time.

An indicator on the side of the screen gave an estimate of EVE's battery level, and it visibly began to drop. That microchip was sucking power again, this time harder than the last. AUTO connected new wires to the microchip and added even more parts, and the battery issue was once again resolved.

He sat back and found himself slowly shaking his head.

_Impossible, _he thought. _The microchip keeps demanding growth, is pulling battery from EVE, and is writing its own programming. That's not... normal. _

He stared at the screen, which still displayed the test results, then looked back down at EVE, who was still sleeping soundly. He reached forward and turned her back on, just to see what she would do. At first she was a bit confused, but the confusion quickly turned to anger within a few seconds.

"I was perfectly fine napping!" she yelled at him using that unique series of blips and screeches. "You didn't have to go and disturb me! What is wrong with you?" She zipped to and fro, waving her arms as she continued. "I don't deserve to be treated like this! I come up here for standard procedure, and I feel like I'm being used instead!"

AUTO's lens widened at the words.

EVE continued, sounding even more distressed. "I've never felt so... so _upset_ in my life! I don't know why that anger just came over me..." She paused, and AUTO watched intently as her eyes ever so slowly drooped and her arms hung at her side. "I can't... explain it. That wasn't me. It's not in my programming to feel that way."

AUTO knew if he had a beating heart, it would be pounding right about now. _She had a behavior malfunction before, and the microchip was supposed to fix that. It seems as though it's only made things worse._

Something else in his programming twisted when EVE brought her sad eyes up to meet his gaze. It gripped him. There was something deep and touching about the way her LED eyes flickered.

"I'm... sorry," she managed, her voice wrenched with anguish. "I've _never_ acted that way before. Ever."

AUTO couldn't take it anymore. Watching the way she acted seemed to... break his heart.

"Your apology is accepted," he quietly replied, and without another word EVE went back into sleep mode. He was still in shock of her sudden change of attitude, and even more confused about why she apologized for the way she felt. If she had not been controlling her actions, how did they come out?

There was only one answer: the behavior patch. That microchip.

AUTO was dumbfounded. _It's as if... it has a mind of its own._

If that were true, how in the world was he supposed to change that without altering EVE's behavior? The microchip had been built to _fix_ the problem, not make it _worse!_ It was not only stealing EVE's power, but now completely interfering with her programming.

For what felt like the millionth time, AUTO was plugging the microchip back into the computer and bringing up various script windows that now revealed a full program had been written within the microchip's mainframe. It drew more power than ever before, and by now AUTO knew the only way to fix that was to add more parts. How much more would he have to add? This didn't seem right at _all!_ The microchip should have _stayed_ a microchip; not transformed into a raw robotic mainframe...

Wait. A robotic _mainframe?_ Did that mean that if AUTO added more parts... it would eventually become a brand new robot?

With it assuming a mind of its own, this was completely possible.

But it wasn't _supposed_ to happen this way.

He pressed a combination of buttons, and a new window popped up on the screen. The voice of the main computer came on and read aloud what was displayed on the screen.

"Are you sure you want to abort the program?"

Two options. Abort or cancel.

AUTO reached forward to press the former, but found himself shaking as he slowly neared it.

_Are you sure you should be doing this?_ the thought flashed quickly through his mind. He hovered over the button, and he was still quivering. _Why do you get nervous at the mere thought of terminating that microchip...?_

"Are you _sure_ you want to abort the program...?"

AUTO caved in. He pressed "Abort".

The indicator light on the microchip ceased to flash. AUTO almost felt lightheaded as he stared at it, watching as the electricity slowly stopped flowing into the small machine. The microchip was rendered inactive, and it was ready to be disposed of.

He watched in silence as the plant logo stopped strobing. For a fleeting moment, he felt regret flood over him, and he was unsure why.

_It was for EVE's own good,_ he reasoned, plucking the microchip from her chest cavity. The wires snapped and sparks flew onto the ground as the wires hooked to the now inactive microchip were severed from EVE.

* * *

Five full days had passed. EVE showed no signs of malfunction since AUTO had aborted the microchip's programming, and she passed all of the advanced diagnostic tests the second time it was run. Finally, AUTO woke her up and was prepared to see her off to the bay where EVE probes were stored until their respective reconnaissance missions.

He told her that she had passed diagnostic tests and was fit to be put back into service, but as he explained it all to her she barely heard the words he was saying. She stared at him the entire time, her eyes narrowed and her head slightly cocked.

Somehow, she knew he had done something against her will. Something drastic without her permission.

She felt... violated. Used. And she couldn't even begin to explain why.

She could no longer see him the same way. As he was speaking to her, she ignored what was being said and turned her back to him. AUTO didn't quite understand what she meant by the move, and when he glided over to stand in front of her, she refused to make eye contact.

"EVE," he began, but she violently shook her head and pointed to the plant icon on her chest.

"Violation," she cried. AUTO stood aback. EVE let out another angry blip. "Breached directive!"

GO-4 appeared and asked AUTO if he wanted him to transport EVE back downstairs to the bay where she belonged, and AUTO hardly heard him ask the question. He was overwhelmed by what he was feeling - what had he done wrong? What had he done to cause her to act like this?

"Yes," he eventually said, answering GO-4's question. "You may return her to the storage bay."

That image of EVE's hardened expression was burned in his memory forever. The way she spoke her last words to him rang in his thoughts for hour after hour. But it was only then, after she had left, that the feelings he had been overtaken by began to fade and disappear; as if they had never once been a hindrance to him or his programming.

And EVE never learned over the course of her existence about that microchip or what had become of it.


End file.
